The AX Report 2003

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Introduction: Guess Who’s Back...Back Again...

    Xoth is back.  Tell a friend.

    Okay, enough of that.  Otherwise, people might think I like Eminem.

    After a two-year layoff, I, Xoth, made my triumphant return to southern California and the annual anime / manga / Japanese pop culture convention called Anime Expo.  *whew*  How’s that for an introductory sentence?  Of course, my visiting AX can mean only one thing, and since you are here reading this, you obviously know what: yet another excessively wordy, shoddily illustrated, and web design-challenged AX Report.  Aren’t you just overjoyed?  Well, whatever your response, here goes....

AX and FFML

To recap for those of you who aren’t familiar with my previous reports, Anime Expo is the biggest anime convention on the West Coast, if not in the U. S.  Since its inception in 1992 it has attracted thousands of anime, manga, gaming, and J-pop fans to the Los Angeles area for a fun-filled weekend of anime screenings, panel discussions, and dealer room spending sprees.  The first planned meeting of members of the FFML (the Final Fantasy Mailing List, a.k.a. the Ferret Fetish Mailing List, the Portal of Evil) at this convention was in 1999, and for the past five years now it’s practically been an annual event.  I attended the first three of these get-togethers, but missed AX 2002 in order to take a study-abroad trip to France.  While that trip was enjoyable, I really missed the whole hanging - out - at - a - convention experience (although I made two solo trips to Chicago’s Anime Central in between AX ’01 and ’03).     Since I had no plans for July this time around, there was no way I was going to miss out on that AX gathering.  Adding to the convention’s appeal was the fact that it would be returning to Anaheim after two years in Long Beach.  Thankfully it was NOT coming back to Disneyland, which hosted the much-maligned 2000 edition of Anime Expo; rather it would be held at the Anaheim Convention Center and the surrounding hotels, which hosted AX ’99 and therefore the first FFML/AX gathering.  So for me, this FFML/AX held a bit of nostalgia.  Only a bit though, as fortunately they made fuller use of the convention center this time around, and the Anaheim Hilton, which had played a big role in 1999, was largely relegated to con registration.  This year AX was shooting for new and improved, bigger and better, and if the slams against AX ’02 are to be believed, they seem to have accomplished their goal.

“So, whaddya think of this  year’s location?” “Hope it’s big enough...”

 

The 1999 FFML-AX group  in our room at the Hilton.

As far as the group’s planning went, once again we failed to start organizing on our Yahoogroups mailing list until a couple months before the con.  We were so late that our first choice for hotels, the Anaheim Hilton and Towers (hotel for the 1999 group), was all booked up, and we had to resort to the Anaheim Marriott across the way.  Actually, this probably worked in our favor; this time the Marriott actually hosted more events than the Hilton, and besides, I have—uncomfortable memories of the room the 1999 group got wedged into.  Anyways, the usual number of people regretfully decided to drop out, and the usual number of newcomers joined up with just weeks to go.  We also did the customary wrangling over who was bringing what game consoles, and so on.  This year we got the bright idea of exchanging cell phone numbers, since most of us ended up bringing them.  Even I planned to bring one, as my brother agreed to lend me his for the trip (not that it helped; I’ll explain this later).  Thanks to a little advance research, we also found out that the Marriott’s TVs required a special adapter to hook up external devices (read: game systems) to it.  Although this was a bit of a setback, at least we learned this a couple weeks beforehand and thus knew it was coming (unlike, say, AX ’01).  So the final days of June ticked by, and on July 2 we came to AX 2003, if not exactly ready for anything, at least somewhat prepared.

The Cast
    By now, you may have asked yourself to whom I am specifically referring when I say “we.”  If not you should have, because I wasn’t too sure myself coming into the trip.  For a variety of reasons longtime FFML/AXers like Pokey, Daran/Deneb, and Mabis weren’t coming.  Locke was optimistic at his chances of going but in the end had to bow out, and of all the FFML/AXers he was the one I was most familiar with (thanks to several non-AX events).  Of the seven other people who made it to AX ’03, I had previously made the acquaintance of only two.  One was Bahamut X, whom I had met at AX ’01; the other was Piro (the FFML member, not the famous webcomic artist), who had spent a grand total of maybe two hours with the AX ’00 and ’01 groups.  Of course, three of the others were longtime FFMLers, just not FFMLers I had ever met before.  And finally there were two newcomers who have never been on FFML (to my knowledge).  So I must say I was a little anxious coming into the convention.  I needn’t have worried; we got along just fine over those five days.  Here we are, in no particular order.

Xoth—Every otaku group needs at least one Asian dude, so I was it.  In addition I am the “official” chronicler behind these silly little accounts, so none of this would be here without me.  Hah!

Lorinan—Lor attended AX ’02 and was so impressed that he was back for more this year.  Or something. ^_^  Being a music major, he was of course involved in a number of karaoke-related events at AX.

SadSiren—Siren is a non-FFML friend of Lor’s and was naturally also involved in AX’s karaoke events.  She was also the only person in our group who did any cosplay, fulfilling another basic requirement of any respectable group of otaku.

Note: “Respectable group of otaku.”  Heh.

Piro—I’ve said it time and again, including just a few paragraphs ago, but just in case, I want to make absolutely clear that FFML’s Piro /= popular webcomic Megatokyo creator Piro.  FFML Piro really doesn’t like that.  He does like using online abbreviations like OMG and LOL in real life.  WTF?

Note: Perhaps I should clarify that he used them only in jest—I think.

SCUDGuy—A friend of Deeblite who joined the list thanks to (or perhaps despite) him.  Anyhow, he also spent a good deal of the con gaming in the room with the others.  Well, we are from the FINAL FANTASY Mailing List, so I guess it had to happen sooner or later. ^_^

Austin—The only one of our group without an online nick that I know of. :D  Our other non-list roomie, he was invited to join up by Bahamut, and he brought an assload of burned anime.  Okay, we didn’t get to watch most of it, but still it was there. XD

The Report
     So now that we’ve met our very special guest stars, it’s time to get things started on the most sensational, inspirational, celebration-al, Muppet-ational—this is what we call the AX Repoooooort! (insert gag sound effect here)

[ Day 0 ]        [ Day 1 ]        [ Day 2 ]        [ Day 3 ]        [ Day 4+ ]        [ Miscellaneous ]

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